


it might've been a nightmare

by heartunsettledsoul



Series: Forgotten Moments [24]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: and part two is .....not gonna be fluff, canon compliant through 4x16, in which jughead is turned on by betty picking locks, part one is pure fluff, post ep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23433652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartunsettledsoul/pseuds/heartunsettledsoul
Summary: A few days later, Jughead will ask her to trust him.And she does, implicitly. Betty trusts him enough to follow him to the ends of the earth.or a 4x12ish-4x16ish post-ep.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: Forgotten Moments [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/840687
Comments: 64
Kudos: 131
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> look at me being hip and using billie eilish lyrics for a title

**_Don’t be mad,_ ** Betty taps out quickly on her phone. **_But Bret is about to burst into your chem lab to tell on me for sneaking into your dorm and going through his stuff._ **

Jughead’s response comes through almost immediately. **_You’re at Stonewall??_ **

And then, **_Send me details after class, I want to know what’s going on._ **

Then once more her phone buzzes with, **_Please tell me you picked the lock. That’s so hot._ **

Any lingering fears Betty may have had about Jughead disapproving of her ever-growing suspicion of Stonewall dissipate with that third text message. _Wouldn’t he like to know,_ she smirks to herself. 

She can’t exactly stick around for Jughead to show his appreciation for her breaking and entering skills, not when Bret seems ready to have her thrown off campus or when her mother is her B-and-E accomplice. But maybe next time Betty visits, she can surprise Jughead by picking the lock instead of knocking. That is _sure_ to make any frenzied, sexual reunion all the more exciting. 

Betty makes a mental note to keep a few extra bobby pins on her person moving forward. 

  
  
  
  
  


As it happens, their reunion happens in Riverdale, not at Stonewall. Which is likely for the best, knowing that there could be cameras hidden somewhere in Jughead’s room. 

They had talked once or twice about filming themselves—in passing, and never very seriously—but this was not at all what either of them had in mind. The mere thought of a recording of their most intimate moments being out in the ether for anybody other than the two of them to watch makes Betty’s skin crawl. 

And makes her want to knock Bret out with a golf club all over again. 

Moose had seemed so resigned about the ordeal and she vows to call him when she finds the tapes so he can have the satisfaction of destroying them himself. 

Betty is still feeling a little violated when Jughead unexpectedly comes through the bedroom door, tossing his school bag aside and attaching his lips firmly to the back of her neck. 

“Hi there, Nancy Drew,” he murmurs. 

She shivers at his breath warm on her skin, but can’t let herself relax when something so crucial is at stake. Jughead’s lips pause in response to her stiff posture and he replaces his mouth with a light press of his thumb, feeling out what is sure to be a bitch of a stress-induced muscle knot. 

“What’s wrong, Betts? What’s happened?” 

“Nothing,” she sighs. “Yet, anyway.” When she looks up to meet his gaze, Betty sees a bruise blooming on his cheekbone. 

_That’s right,_ she remembers. Part of the never-ending duel with Bret involved a fist fight, which must have happened today. Betty reaches to cup his cheek in her palm, brushing her thumb over the sore spot. He flinches; she’ll need to get ice for him. 

Jughead leans into the touch briefly, but snaps back to attention a moment later. “But enough happened to necessitate some secret B-and-E without warning me.” It’s not a question, and Betty can hear the tightness in his voice. Not unwarranted, considering she had given him hell just last week for keeping things from her. 

“It isn’t breaking and entering if someone knows it’s happening ahead of time,” Betty counters. All she gets is a pointed look as Jughead moves to the edge of their bed, facing her as she spins around in her desk chair. “I didn’t want you to accidentally clue him in and give Bret time to relocate things before I could check it out for myself.” 

“Relocate _what_ things?” 

“Moose told me there are ...tapes. Of him. In your dorm room. And that’s what got him to leave.” 

Jughead blinks rapidly and Betty can see the gears turning in his head. “You talked to Moose? Tapes of what?” 

Betty fills in the blanks on Chipping and Moose’s sudden penchant for the military in quick succession. “So that’s why I snuck into your room. I think Bret is the one behind it and that he’s storing them there—or _was_ before he caught us.” 

Finally, Jughead reaches the conclusion she’s been waiting for, the one she is too nauseated to put words to. “There’s a camera in my dorm room, that recorded Moose having sex. In the bottom bunk of the bed where you and I have sex.” Betty nods. She watches Jughead’s hands curl up into fists as he stands to pace around the room. The effect is somewhat dampened by the brightly patterned cupcakes on his socks, one of the pairs she bought him for Christmas. 

For quite some time, all he does is pace and flex his hands, while Betty chews on her bottom lip and waits for him to say something else. 

“If he taped us I am going to murder him.” 

He draws her to him, wraps his arms around her waist and sinks them both into the messy blankets of their bed. Betty used to make it every day, sheets and duvet so straight you could bounce a quarter off them, frilly pillows arranged just so, and worn ears of her favorite stuffed animal hidden away. Now, she likes leaving it undone, it feels more like Jughead is still home that way. 

Jughead has made her a little messier, more relaxed, less _Cooper._ (More _Cooper-Jones_ , she sometimes thinks quietly to herself, a glimpse of their future away from this damned town). 

Now, he holds her to him, soothes the shaking she hadn’t noticed until then—shaking that probably hadn’t even started until he arrived, her body knowing before her brain that she was finally safe to unravel with him there. 

“I love you,” Jughead whispers. “Pizza and all the mysteries in Connecticut, just you wait.” 

Betty swallows hard against tears, knowing how poor the odds of a rejection-turned-acceptance are. Especially given the claims against her Quiz Bowl win. Instead of tears, though, a grumble from her stomach escapes and Jughead chuckles. 

“You’re getting my bad habits,” he jokes. “Any mention of food and it’s instant hunger.” 

“I haven’t eaten much,” Betty confesses. “Too anxious.” Jughead makes a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat, and she can tell there’s worry in there as well. Her anxiety is something they are both accustomed to accommodating but there is no manual for when the anxiety is prompted by the very real threat of a sex tape looming over their heads. 

_Her_ head, most specifically. Jughead would go to the ends of the earth for her, and likely _will_ over this, but if the worst were to happen, Jughead would recover. 

Nobody ever judges the guy when sexual rumors or details are shared at large. 

Suddenly the prospect of Yale, or any other college, seems like even more of an impossibility. Just yesterday, she was upset about being barred from her senior prom. 

It feels trivial now. Betty misses the simplicity of a life where she can focus on trivial things. 

“Come on,” she whispers, pulling them both upright. “We need to get some ice on your face before that turns into a huge shiner.” 

“You should see the other guy,” Jughead wisecracks. At her eye roll, he sobers. “I would have kicked him while he was down if I knew about those tapes.” 

“We’ll take him down.” Betty’s voice holds more confidence than she feels. 

He nods, but doesn’t let her up. Instead, Jughead tugs gently on her wrist until his back is flat on the bed and she hovers over him. Palms warm on her sides, the thin fabric of her shirt a useless barrier, Jughead kisses her deeply. Tension drains out of her and her arms give up trying to hold her up, collapsing onto his chest lightly but still eliciting a gasp of air that she swallows before pushing his beanie out of the way and winding her fingers into his hair. 

There probably isn’t time for this—not enough time for them to _really_ get what they both want out of it, anyway—but Betty relishes in the feel of his hands on her and in how comforting it is to give into this. 

With a slight roll of her hips, she positions them to be better aligned and preens at Jughead’s appreciative groan. He uses both hands to guide her movement in slow circles over the hardness behind his uniform slacks and it’s her turn to groan when lips trail down her jaw to nip at her earlobe. 

It’s hot and frantic and they may as well have just disrobed because Betty loves the way that her sensitivity heightens when she gets goosebumps, and she starts to say so, but soon Jughead’s hand is slipping into her leggings to touch her and her mind goes blank mid-sentence. 

“Did you have something to say,” he teases. Again, Betty opens her mouth to speak again and immediately snaps her jaw shut when he shoves her underwear to the side and presses his fingers upward. 

The room is silent except for their labored breathing. Betty tries to place sloppy kisses on his neck and mouth, but his hand feels too good and he’s whispering so sweetly in her ear that all she can do is push down against his talented fingers in search of more sensation. 

He swallows her cry of release and chuckles at her mumbled apology when she goes boneless over him, neither of them able to quite reach well enough to help _his_ continued situation. “Don’t worry about it,” Jughead whispers, brushing hair from her forehead. “I think you needed that more than I did.” 

Betty huffs a laugh. “Guess so, I feel like I could sleep for a hundred years now.” 

“I think you need that, too.” 

She murmurs in agreement, but before the post-orgasmic glow can fade into a comfortable nap, her stomach grumbles again. 

“Pizza?” Jughead suggests, his own stomach making noises in response. 

“I’ll call it in.” She rolls off him but uses one hand to toy with his belt loop while reaching for her phone with the other. “But maybe while we wait for the delivery we could take an eco-friendly shower and I can return the favor.” Jughead emits a strangled noise when she trails her fingers lower and squeezes, but she tuts at him. “Shush, I’m on the phone.” 

By the time she finishes ordering two large pizzas—one meat lover’s, one half-cheese-half-veggie—Jughead is looking at her with such fire in his eyes that she’s turned on all over again. 

“You said something about a shower,” he murmurs between kisses on her neck, as he gently pushes her hand beneath his zipper. 

She mumbles a yes before reclaiming her wits and leaping up with a sly grin. “If you want to get started, I can reenact my lock-picking skills first.” 

When the pizza comes, Betty is the one to answer the door, hair damp and sweats hastily thrown on. Jughead is still recovering from Betty’s spectacular breaking-and-entering display. 

  
  
  


The next days are a blur of chess strategy, mind games, and more trespassing. They finally seem to gain the upper hand until it all crumbles with the plagiarism accusation. Where Jughead feels resigned and ready to leave those pompous assholes to their absurdity, Betty wants to burn it all down. 

A few days later, Jughead will ask her to trust him. 

And she does, implicitly. Betty trusts him enough to follow him to the ends of the earth. 

_It’s all gonna be okay,_ he promises. 

So she’ll say _okay,_ unaware of what’s to come.

.

.

.

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rationally, this is the preppies, hellbent on ruining them, to the point of killing Jughead. 
> 
> Less rationally, Betty nearly killed the love of her life. May have done irreparable brain damage, even. 
> 
> Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation is the right one. Solved as simply as a game of Clue; Betty, in the woods, with the rock. 
> 
> Betty, with the bloody rock standing over Jughead. Betty tried to kill Jughead—tried, possibly succeeded. Case closed. 
> 
> She stares herself down in her broken vanity mirror, goosebumps across bare flesh and blood on her favorite (and Jughead’s favorite) bra. 
> 
> Betty in the woods with the rock. Case closed—right? _(God, she hopes it’s not.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for the purposes of this, let's pretend that charles isn't as sus as he is, that I have a better grasp of what parts of the 'jughead is dead' fakeout happen when, and that the 'betty fake dates archie to prove jug's death' thing is extremely minimal. it would be nonexistent if I didn't want to make the joke about betty & jug hating archie's aftershave. 
> 
> carry on.

This feels like the Ghoulies disaster all over again: Jughead, in a coma for an indeterminate amount of time; Betty, barely clinging to her sanity while waiting for him to wake up. 

This time, though. This time they don’t know who is responsible for his injuries. 

This time, it may very well have been Betty. 

Her rational mind knows that there is no way, even in a fugue state, would she ever hurt Jughead. The smaller, back corner of her brain where her deepest fears live—fears that have been slowly overcoming her rationality ever since Evelyn and her brainwashing—isn’t so sure. 

Rationally, this is the preppies, hellbent on ruining them, to the point of killing Jughead. 

Less rationally, Betty nearly killed the love of her life. May have done irreparable brain damage, even. 

Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation is the right one. Solved as simply as a game of Clue; Betty, in the woods, with the rock. 

Betty, with the bloody rock standing over Jughead. Betty tried to kill Jughead—tried, possibly succeeded. Case closed. 

She stares herself down in her broken vanity mirror, goosebumps across bare flesh and blood on her favorite (and Jughead’s favorite) bra. 

Betty in the woods with the rock. Case closed—right? ( _God, she hopes it’s not.)_

Betty tries to calm her hyperventilating, then dashes into the bathroom to throw up. 

  
  
  


She’s woken up only a couple hours later by her mother flinging the door open. “Elizabeth, your brother is here for breakfast, come down and eat with us.” 

“Not breakfast, Alice,” Charles says, squeezing behind her in the doorway and carrying a file box. “Just stopping to say hello on my way into the field office, because I found those case study files Betty wanted to use for her trainee project.” The box sits on her vanity with a soft thud, the reverberation knocking loose another shard of glass from her mirror. 

He is gone as quickly as he came and her mother frowns at his retreating form, then turns that frown toward Betty. “Elizabeth, I didn’t realize you were taking this FBI training program so seriously. Her mother pauses and the frown slips into something softer. “I’m glad you’re exploring your options, you seem well-suited for this.” 

If she weren’t so antsy to see what Charles left for her, Betty may have taken a moment to appreciate the quasi-compliment from her mother. They’ve spent more time together, bonding over the Stonewall investigation, and while she still doesn’t forgive her for everything that went down with Edgar and The Farm, Betty has to admit it feels nice to not actively be mad at her. 

Instead, she practically shoves her out the door, claiming to need a shower and then tears the lid off the box. Charles, competent at his job in a way most Riverdale residents are not, has stacked the box full of the FBI program assignment, redacted case files, and—at the very bottom—a burner phone with a note stuck to it. 

_Stable for now,_ it reads in his blocky handwriting. _Not awake yet. Stay tuned._

Betty wants to lock herself inside her closet with nothing but her Stonewall notes and that phone, shut away from the world until she knows Jughead is alright. 

Until she’s sure it wasn’t _her_ who wielded the now-bloody rock. 

The minutes tick by at an excruciating pace. There are texts that pop up on the phone, directions to her and to two other unknowns, Charles helping her, Veronica, and Archie get organized. Well, helping Veronica and Archie keep their mouths shut, mostly, and then getting organized with Betty.

Betty wades into the ethers of the internet, learning all about a plant named Devil’s Breath. She’s written down a step by step account of everything that happened the previous evening, up until her confrontation with Donna; then puzzles over geometry and some physics she barely understands, trying to determine if the location of Jughead’s wound meant someone shorter than him—someone Betty’s height—could have struck him. 

The logistics prove too murky. Could she have been drugged into harming him? Could she have been drugged into _thinking_ she harmed him? 

Well, Betty knows the answer to the second question already. 

Even without what she thinks was Devil’s Breath powder, that nagging voice in her mind whispers her deepest fear: something inside her is wrong, _broken_ , evil, and she can and will harm everyone she loves. 

Betty knows in her heart of hearts that she could never hurt Jughead like that. 

But _does_ she? 

This cycle of certainty and doubt goes on for hours until she can’t even see straight, let alone think clearly. 

It has been 20 hours and 37 minutes since Betty had to perform CPR on the love of her life. 20 hours and four minutes since she saw him wheeled into a medic vehicle and taken away from her. 

With him out of sight, the waiting feels worse. There is no comfort of a beeping heart monitor, no barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest to watch, no warm hand to hold to confirm that his stubbornness has won out. 

Back when Penny Peabody was at fault, Jughead had been unconscious for days. It had hurt to see him so close to death’s door, but she could watch him slowly come back to her. Betty is now entirely reliant on a chain of communication she cannot trust; if he wakes up, she won’t be the first to know, and if the worst happens, she might not be able to say goodbye. 

  
  
  


Betty waits out hours 21 through 23 huddled on the cool tile of her bathroom floor, emptying the contents of her stomach until she spits up nothing but bile and her own tears. 

  
  
  


Hour 27 has her creating a list of ways to end Bret’s and Donna’s lives, literally and figuratively. One for each hour Jughead has been unconscious. 

  
  
  


A nightmare of Jughead’s funeral, where Betty is in attendance in handcuffs, wakes her around hour 31. 

  
  
  


Just as they’re cresting into hour 36, the burner phone beeps. _Awake, asking for you._

  
  
  


(Asking for her is, at least, a positive sign that Betty wasn’t the one to crack him over the head with a softball-sized rock—even if the tableau was designed to look like she had.) 

(This should be reassuring. It’s not.) 

  
  
  


By hour 40, there is a plan in place. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Something about this time feels worse, but Betty can’t quite put her finger on it. 

(No, that’s a lie. It feels different because this one might have been her fault. Betty shoves that nagging thought away. It _probably_ wasn’t her fault, they just haven’t confirmed it.) 

Betty throws herself into the investigation—and the farce of Jughead’s disappearance—twice as hard once Jughead wakes up. If she can just _solve this_ , fix it and take down those smug Stonewall dicks and clear all their names, it will be fine. She wants— _needs_ to face Donna again, however many times it takes to bring down their tower of cards. 

At first Betty tells herself that she has too much to do for the case to find time and a secure location to call Jughead; once he is moved from the FBI safe house into the bunker-turned-hideout, she has to admit to herself that she is scared to talk to him or see him. 

Thankfully, the first check-in still has Jug too hopped up on pain medication for him to question her distance. He bids her a mumbled _goodbyeloveyoubetty_ and it takes all of her energy to wait until she runs the shower to break into sobs. 

She more or less has her head screwed on better once in the throes of playing the mourning girlfriend. In a way, she _is_ in mourning. 

And yet. 

“Will you please come over here,” Jughead whines through the burner phone. “I’m going crazy and I know there’s a chemistry exam tomorrow so there’s no way Donna or Bret are out here tonight. They’re sociopaths but they’re sociopaths who care about grades.” 

Every bone in her body screams at her to say yes. He’s right—it is the middle of the night, Charles has confirmed that Donna and Bret are back on Stonewall campus, and JB and FP are in the loop now and could cover with Alice—so Betty could easily slip out to see him. 

The small, scared voice in the back of her head is saying that she shouldn’t be around Jughead; it’s unsafe, not because of the long con they’re playing, but because _she_ isn’t safe to be around. That nagging feeling that has never quite gone away since her dad’s garbled voice saying _you’re just like me_ or since Edgar and Polly and her mother planted seeds about genes, or since Evelyn and her stupid codeword nonsense—it’s getting to her now more than ever. 

Now that her own mother believes she was capable of killing Jughead—even her best friends, who know and trust her (far more than Alice if she’s being honest) questioned it—Betty doubts her mind. 

She doubted herself, in those brief, horrifying moments between awakening to her surroundings and Jughead’s ragged breath and plea not to go to the hospital. 

Even now, that voice reminds her that Jughead very well could have denied proper help because he knew it had been Betty to hurt him and—despite that—he loved her too much to let her get caught. 

It is an absurd thought, Betty knows. But it would be a very Jughead thing to do.

It would be just as likely for Jughead, on his dying breath after his secretly-psychopathic girlfriend kills him, to ensure said secretly-psychopathic girlfriend escapes as it is for him to be asking his maybe-subconsciously-psychopathic girlfriend to come visit him in a doomsday bunker while he waits out his faked death. 

“Betts?” 

She’s in her bedroom; she is not in the middle of the woods surrounding Stonewall, not desperately forcing air back into his lungs, not the girl who nearly cracked open her boyfriend’s skull. 

“Y-yeah, I’m here,” she stutters. “And no.” Betty clenches her teeth and one fist, tightens the other where it holds the phone up to her ear. “No, I can’t risk it, Juggie. I’ll call you tomorrow.” She ends the call before Jughead finishes what he’s saying, gasping for air. 

Preparing for bed is fast and she runs through the steps with a perfunctory ease. All too soon Betty stares up at the dark ceiling from the bed she usually shares with Jughead in the room that—thanks to him, and only him—holds far more good memories from the past few months than the whole house does from her childhood. 

It’s a Tuesday, so even normally she would be sleeping without him. They’d taken to texting until one of them fell asleep first each week night, usually her. 

As expected, the burner phone blinks alive. The message from the restricted number reads _goodnight, love you._

Flipping the screen over, Betty blinks away angry tears and waits for sleep to come. 

  
  


In the end, it’s Charles who convinces her to visit Jughead. 

“Betty,” he sighs. “If you insist on being part of this investigation, then I need you focused. I need Jughead focused on piecing things together from his time at Stonewall. Instead he is moping in that bunker because he thinks you’re avoiding him.” Charles raises an eyebrow. “Which you _are_ , so maybe knock that off?” 

It stings to be called out so pointedly. 

“Everyone thinks I am capable of hurting him, Charles. They cover it, sure, but I know they all had that split second of _Well, I suppose that makes sense, she could have killed him,_ and I can’t face that. I can’t face _him_.” 

A hand rests on her shoulder and Betty looks up to watch her brother’s expression. She has noticed he isn’t one for physical affection, so this grounds her more than anything. 

“I’m not going to pretend that Alice assuming you killed Jughead isn’t questionable parenting. But you know who doesn’t think you tried to kill him? _Jughead_.” Charles squeezes her shoulder gently. “I gave you burner phones for a reason. And it wasn’t for Jughead to be texting _me_ at 3am with crack theories.” 

She has to chuckle at that. Years with Jughead means Betty has woken up to many a rambling conspiracy—whether about a current case in Riverdale, or about what ingredient they put in Bomino’s pizza to make the crust so addictive. 

It takes another couple of days to organize the best timing for Betty to sneak into the bunker, and by the time she is lowering herself down the ladder her heart is practically in her throat. 

She misses him so much that it physically hurts and she isn’t quite sure if, upon seeing him, she will collapse into tears of relief or tears of anguish. There is not even a moment to deliberate, though, because the second her foot connects with solid concrete, arms wrap around her. 

“Betts,” Jughead breathes, practically a prayer. The hug is strong but not the bone-crushing embrace she’s come to expect when Jughead is being overzealous. It’s quite weak, actually, and when they break apart, she can see that Jughead is beyond pale and looking like he might keel over. 

“You’re supposed to be resting,” she chides. “Concussions are no joke, Juggie.” 

“I didn’t want to wait another minute to see you.” 

Guilt washes over her for allowing her insecurities and self-absorbed worry to get the best of her. Jughead—her touchstone, her rock, her _everything_ —had needed her and she had been too ashamed of things beyond her control to be by his side. 

For this, she swears, she is going to decimate Donna and every other one of those miserable assholes at Stonewall. 

He lets her guide him back to the cot where he all but crumples onto the messy blankets and littering of notebook paper. Shuffling them together, Jughead starts talking a mile a minute. “Charles has most of my theories because I couldn’t really tell how much you wanted to be involved with this part of things—” another stab of guilt “—but I think I’ve pieced together a decent amount of what’s going on.” During his huge inhale, presumably to prepare for a big expository ramble and to even out his breathing, Betty lays a hand over his where he grasps the notes. 

“Jug, let’s just sit for a minute, okay?” Confusion flickers across his face, but he doesn’t say anything. “I want to—” her voice catches. “I want to bask in you being alive for a little bit.” 

Gingerly, Betty arranges herself alongside him in the cot, and once again is reminded of the last time he nearly died and they’d done this. Thankfully he has fewer bruises and broken bones, but the lonely, aching thought of a world without him haunts her just the same. 

The steady thumping of his heartbeat reassures her and Betty clings to this reality against the nervous horrors of her brain. 

“I’m here, it’s okay.” She shudders out a breath, then the breath breaks into a sob. With a soft rustling, Jughead wraps his arm around her and strokes her hair. “I’m okay,” he repeats. Even once her tears subside, he must sense how upset she is, and tries to lighten the moment. “They couldn’t even kill me properly, so I’m optimistic for our takedown.” 

She chokes a little on her laughter. When she reaches up to cup his cheek, then lightly touches the bandage on his head, Jughead leans into the gesture before twisting to kiss her palm. 

It is hard for her to find her voice, let alone the words, to ask how he is so certain it wasn’t her. 

As ever, Jughead can read her best of all. “I know you could never do that, Betts. No matter what you might think of yourself, or what you might think lurks in the back of your mind, I _know_ you. I would never believe that of you.” 

Tears fill her eyes again. “Everybody else did,” she mumbles. 

“Then fuck everybody else.” Jughead’s swear is vehement. “Once we take care of these preppies, I’m going to have words with anybody who second guessed you.” 

Nodding softly, Betty rests her head back down. “I’ll write you a list,” she says half-heartedly. 

“Looking forward to it.” 

  
  
  
  


After that, they are too entrenched in the plan to risk frequent visits. Charles limits their burner calls to ‘only when strictly necessary.’ 

Jughead is the one to bend that rule, lowly telling Betty that it is strictly necessary for her to know how much he wishes he could fuck her against the wall of the bunker. 

The phone call extends for their respective strictly necessary orgasms. 

  
  
  


Their next scheduled time together is ruined when Veronica calls Betty to inform her that Donna tailed her to Pop's. 

Archie manages to beat her to the bunker and the whole situation lends itself to solidifying the lie, but when they try to resume after Archie leaves with his burger, Jughead wrinkles his nose. 

“You smell like Archie’s aftershave.” 

Betty pouts, but retreats to eat her fries and thoroughly scrubs herself in the shower later. 

  
  
  


They make up for that particular interruption the moment it’s deemed safe for Jughead to return to the house. The trip out to Stonewall is the next day but the legwork is done and they know their roles and lines for the confrontation. 

Betty errs toward doting on Jughead and his concussion still, which she accomplishes with only some resistance after she pushes him onto their bed and slips his cock into her mouth. 

After a few moments, she pauses to ask, “Still want me to ‘stop treating you like you’re made of glass’?” 

“Not particularly,” he chokes out. “As long as I get to return the favor.” 

He does, thoroughly enough that Betty flings out an arm to steady herself and knocks a water glass over on the nightstand. 

“Well if that’s how you treat glass,” Jughead chides. 

She’s giggling into their kiss when he crawls up to her and turns the cup right side up. “I missed you, Juggie.” 

“I missed you so much.” 

They fall silent as they move together, releasing their groans into each other’s mouths or in soft bites on sensitive skin. Betty feels overcome with sensation and emotion, unsure how this boy surrounding her helped keep her broken self whole. 

Tears slide down her cheeks and Jughead pauses. “Did something hurt, are you okay?” 

Nodding fiercely, Betty soothes the worried crease of his forehead with her thumb then slides it over to his healing cut. “Nothing. Happy you’re alive, that’s all.” 

He peppers her with kisses before guiding the hand at his head down to his chest. Palm over hers, he presses their hands flat over where his heart beats. 

“I’m right here,” he confirms in a whisper. Betty swallows the tears that threaten to come back in full force. 

When she lifts her hips to meet his again, sweat slicks their bodies together and Betty moves to the thrum of her pulse in her ears. Jughead trails his mouth down her neck and collarbone to her chest and sucks a hickey into the skin over her left breast bone, above her heart. 

After that, they get lost to their bodies; Jughead hitches her leg over his hip and thrusts hard enough that Betty bites her lip to muffle the cry it elicits; Betty slips her fingers to where they’re joined and brings herself to the edge, coming only when he pushes her leg higher while licking at her earlobe; her whispered _let go for me_ into his neck has Jughead careening toward his finish and giving in to his shaking arms to press down on her. 

  
  


He kisses the hickey at her heart before turning an ear to listen to her heartbeat.

  
  
  
  


They aren’t even looked at twice as they cut through the swarm of uniformed students, despite their street clothes and Jughead’s supposed death. Idly, Betty wonders how much the other students at Stonewall even pay attention to the dramatics of this group. If Jughead had managed to come here outside of Chipping and DuPont’s influence, could he have had a completely normal experience? 

(Would it have been worth it?) 

The warning bell rings and Jughead straightens up from where he leans against the door. 

“Ready for this?” Betty asks. 

He squeezes her hand tightly, then draws her close to him to kiss her. It’s brief but she feels it down to her toes. 

Jughead grins. “Born ready.” 

Betty grasps the ornate door knob and twists. 

.

.

.

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then 4x16 is only smug bughead solving crime and then the show's over, right? right. 
> 
> ahem. 
> 
> as usual, please please pretty leave some comments if you feel so inclined.


End file.
